The RIAA vs Don Leadbetter
p2pnet.net News:- Dawnell Leadbetter was, with Patti Santangelo, one of the first American mothers to decide she wasn’t going to take any more from Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, the members of the Big 4 Organized Music cartel.
She sued Comcast for disclosing her name and contact information to their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).
The cartel’s Settlement Support Center LLC, “was using information that the Recording Industry of Association of America (RIAA) had obtained in a Philadelphia lawsuit over the illegal sharing of digital music files,” said Lory Lybeck, the lawyer representing Leadbetter
“But no court authorized Comcast to release names and addresses of its customers, or notified his client that her information had been given to an outside party.”
Now in a move which has become Standard Operating Procedure, the RIAA is demanding summary judgement not against the mother, but against her son, Don who, in his turn, wants summary judgment dismissing the case lodged by the RIAA, says Recording Industry vs The People.
Despite “massive” and, “probably illegal investigation tactics directed at Mr. Leadbetter,” says a court document, the Big 4 haven’t been able to prove their claims of copyright infringement, a commercial matter the labels have used the mainsream media to boost to the level of major crime.
In an earlier court document, it was only after the RIAA, “went to the time and expense of traveling to Seattle for depositions” they found, “Ms. Leadbetter’s fiance Alan Pitcher, was also a direct infringer, along with her son, Donald Leadbetter”.
What!? Leadbetter didn’t tell the RIAA her fiance should be included in the case to save them time and money!?
“Plaintiffs allege that they obtained testimony from Alan Pitcher at his deposition on July 12, 2006 supporting a claim for direct infringement,” says the document. But, “Despite this discovery in July, plaintiffs waited nearly five months to seek joinder of Alan Pitcher. Furthermore, plaintiffs requested, and were granted, two extensions to the scheduling order. See Dkt. #29, #37. Despite these requests, plaintiffs never sought extension of the cutoff for joining additional parties, even in their September 8, 2006 stipulation and proposed order that was filed almost two months after Mr. Pitcher�s deposition on July 12, 2006 when they discovered his involvement in this case.”
In one of the first cases to raise the defence that the share folder has been disabled, in a long and detailed demand to have the case dismissed, Don Leadbetter’s lawyer, Lory Lybeck, says among other things, that Leadbetter was shown two lists of songs said to have comprised the alleged infringed songs.
However, Leadbetter flatly denies downloading any of the songs on either list.
He also denies allowing music files he downloaded to be shared with others, saying he’d, “disabled the peer-to-peer sharing function of the computer program he used on his computer, which prevented the music files from being shared with other users”.
Interestingly, the case also once again spotlights MediaSentry and its fake downloads, used to try to trick people into grabbing ’spoofs’ instead of genuine music files.
Like Sharman Networks’ discredited Kazaa p2p file sharing application, similarly discredited MediaSentry shows up time and again in file sharing cases launched by the Big 4 around the world as part of their bizarre and ongoing campaign to attempt to sue their own customers into buying ‘product’.
Also See:
Dawnell Leadbetter – The ‘We’re Not Taking Any More’ club, September 17, 2005
Patti Santangelo – Robert Santangelo bites back, January 31, 2007
sued Comcast – Mobile phone firms seek their own search engine, September 10, 2005
Settlement Support Center LLC – Settlement Support Center, LLC, September 22, 2005
Recording Industry vs The People – Summary Judgment Battle Rages in Washington in Interscope v. Leadbetter, February 3, 2007
discredited Kazaa – Kazaa sued in class action, December 7, 2006
time and again – RIAA: trying it on with MediaSentry, December 7, 2006
around the world – Utrecht MediaSentry decision, December 18, 2006
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February 5th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
Sadly, the “I didn’t share the files, I only downloaded them” defense isn’t going to hold up in court. In the US, both downloading and uploading of copyrighted material counts as infringement if not given explicit permission to do so. Not uploading only helps you to not get caught. Once you’re caught, you’re screwed, even if you didn’t upload. Looks like it’s time for Leadbetter to move to Canada, where the government feels that the blank media levy brings in enough money that downloading copyrighted files without explicit permission is okay.
PS: I hear that PeerGuaridan helps filter out MediaSentry, although I’m not sure since I don’t use P2P for music.
February 5th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
PG can’t help you to be safe from them, since “Mizzo” can use unsuspicious dynamic DSL IP’s -like every “genuine infringer” would do- to harvest the data that those obsolete music industry dinosaur middleman wants.
But what an IP blocker can do is reducing the ammount of useless datagarbage you would download from their known server park IP addresses if you prefer to download big 4 music from the net.
“Well known” ranges for example are:
38.100.24.1 – 38.100.27.254
38.100.134.1 – 38.100.135.254
208.10.23.1 – 208.10.23.254
208.10.29.1 – 208.10.29.254
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